Thursday, 20 July 2017

The following is an announcement from the History Department at Carleton University on the annual Shannon Lecture series. Some years they're of interest to the family historian. Sadly this won't be one of them.

The History Department’s Shannon Lecture Series for 2017, will commence on September 22, 2017. This year’s lecture series looks at Expo 67 as the highlight of Canada’s centennial. A world’s fair held in Montreal, it dazzled the world with its daring architecture, innovative exhibits, and high-minded theme, “Man and His World.” Many Canadians regarded it as Canada’s coming-out party, a moment when the young nation burst into the international limelight and strutted its stuff to universal acclaim. Substitute “Quebec” or “Indigenous Peoples” for “Canada” in the previous sentence and it would be equally true – Expo 67 was a rich, multivalent spectacle that generated diverse messages. In Canada’s 150th anniversary year, the Carleton Department of History is revisiting Expo 67 to reflect upon the meaning of it all. A select group of lecturers will address key topics such as Expo’s intellectual origins, how it became a proud emblem of modernization for both Canadian and Quebec nationalists, its impact on Indigenous rights and culture, and its iconic stature in the histories of architecture and cinema. X out the dates in your calendar to experience exposition by Expo experts that will expand your mind exponentially. Visit the Shannon Lectures website for more information or click the individual event listings below.

September 22: Gary Miedema: “A Painted Summer Scene: Expo 67 in the Context of Canada in the 1960s”

October 13: Jean-Philippe Warren: “Quebec as a Woodstock Nation: When counterculture meets mainstream”

November 3: Carmen Robertson: “Visibility/Invisibility: Art and the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo ’67”

November 17: Inderbir Singh Riar: “Expo 67: Some Notes on Architecture, Nationhood, and Late Modernity”